About this project

$18,950

pledged of $18,000 goal

243

backers

WHAT IS ROBOTS LOVE ICE CREAM?

Robots Love Ice Cream is an original independent Unity 3D game currently in development for the iPad and iPad2, slated for release to the Apple App Store in 2011. In the game, you'll play the role of an ice cream truck driver defending the galaxy from robotic invaders by stuffing them with delicious weaponized ice cream treats until they explode with joy...because Robots Love Ice Cream.

Robots Love Ice Cream will be defined by beautiful effects, exciting battles, humorous weapons and animations, fantastical and colorful environments, and action that makes the player feel adventurous and heroic.

We've got solid plans in place for how the game will be structured, with plans for specific levels, achievements, boss battles, challenges, and an exciting new gameplay mechanic that allows the player to spin the game world 360 degrees to launch ice cream themed weapons in all directions with the swipe of a finger.

WHY KICKSTARTER?

We (Burton and Becca) have essentially taken the summer off from our consulting/independent contracting practices to work really intensely to bring Robots Love Ice Cream to life. We've saved money to live on and enable us to devote our focus and labors to the game, but we really need more funds to get all the creative professionals we need on board, as well as to invest in software and other production tools that will enable the creation of the game at the level of quality that we believe is key.

We've self-funded a good bit of this project, but we'll never be able to execute at the speed and production quality we're hoping for without your help. We hope you can already see the quality and art style that we're striving for in the game demo video and images shown here.

Any funds we raise over our goal will go to increase the production values of the existing game, to create new expansion content, and/or to port the game to other systems, taking into account the needs of the project and our supporters' feedback.

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

With Robots Love Ice Cream, we're striving to create a sincere game experience that embodies the warm, fond feelings and memories of the summertimes spent as a kid, playing with friends until the sun goes down in a world that feels like a much bigger place than you can ever fathom.

While Robots Love Ice Cream is an all-original game--original characters, original story, original game mechanic, and original art and music--we'd love for it to stand as an homage to some of our favorite games from our youth, like Space Invaders and Missile Command, with references to these throw-back experiences that many of us loved growing up. Robots Love Ice Cream is designed to be approachable for all ages, so both children and adults can get something out of it.

We really want to create something that's beautiful and different, that occasionally surprises you and consistently delights you. If anything in our game can get you to say, "I don't know what kind of a mind that came from, but I know it's awesome," then we've done our job!

Here's a preview of our T-shirt reward:

And here's a preview of the design for our poster reward:

We hope that as a supporter, you'll be as excited about this game as we are. Thanks for checking out Robots Love Ice Cream!

We're still considering this question. The issue is that there will be a lot of action on the screen in Robots Love Ice Cream. Putting the game on a smaller screen could compromise the user experience because of the touch mechanic. If we see a strong demand for Robots Love Ice Cream to come to the iPhone, we'll definitely make our best effort to make it happen once Robots Love Ice Cream for the iPad is a success!

A lot of our friends have asked if we (Burton and Becca) are raising money to support ourselves or compensate ourselves for our time while we do this project. The answer is absolutely NOT! Kickstarter frowns upon this and we wouldn't want to do that, anyway. We're not employees in this venture--putting in sweat equity is part of the deal. Our rewards will come when Robots Love Ice Cream is a hit. That's our incentive to make it the very best game we can make!

All funds we raise will go to expenses that we incur directly to produce and release Robots Love Ice Cream. Our two largest expenses by far will be the advanced software that's necessary to create the game elements (models, textures, effects) and program the mechanic, and wages that we'll pay to our creative team to compensate them for their time and the use of their art.

Other than that, we'll have smaller costs for things like promotions and branding, and of course fulfillment expenses for rewards for our awesome supporters (you're totally worth it!).

Right now we have nine people who are actively working or have committed to work on Robots Love Ice Cream. Our team includes a creative director/production designer, three artists, two composers, and a sound designer. Everyone but Burton and Becca also works a regular 9-5 job at an agency or studio and is contributing their efforts in their spare time.

Yes! If you pledge at the Ice Cream Cake level, you'll receive access to our exclusive beta and be able to help our development team test and polish the game. We have a very limited number of beta ID's available, but we've reserved ten of them especially for our loyal and awesome Kickstarter backers.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $600 or more
About $600

BANANA SPLIT All Root Beer Float rewards + Naming privileges for something--a character, weapon, planet, etc.--in the game (we reserve the right to tweak the name to make it fit in with the Robots Love Ice Cream aesthetic) + Exclusive phone updates with the Robots Love Ice Cream development team.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $2,500 or more
About $2,500

HOT FUDGE SUNDAE All Root Beer Float rewards + Development team phone updates + Your very own 16GB WiFi iPad2 that you can use to play Robots Love Ice Cream + We'll take you out to lunch at our favorite place the next time you're in Atlanta!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $5,000 or more
About $5,000

SOLID GOLD SUNDAE All Hot Fudge Sundae rewards + We'll fly you from any major airport in the 48 contiguous United States to Atlanta and put you up in a nice hotel so you can attend our launch party to celebrate the release of the game as our special guest!